As-Salaam Alaikum.
Had the day off yesterday. I have the day off tomorrow. It's a Christmas Miracle. On our days off we go to Doha, to which you may be thinking "aren't you in Doha?" Nope. I'm in America right now. On a small sliver of land on a Qatari military installation. We have an American mall, complete with BX, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Arby's, and a spa (a real spa, not sitting alert). We have the American postal service. We have Wi-Fi with American Football. Everybody speaks English, making my attempts to learn Arabic irrelevant. So yes, I'm in Doha, but not really. When we get days off, we get to go to the real Doha. We get to travel.
I have now been to 27 countries. When I tell people that a lot of them are surprised, "Only 27? I thought you've been everywhere..." Everywhere gets a lot bigger when you actually try to go everywhere. (Plus how many countries have you been to? Four? And Puerto Rico doesn't count, you've been to three.) My 27 is also not counting the dozens of countries I've flown over but never landed; people get too mad when I count flying over the Grand Canyon as having been to the Grand Canyon (people literally drive there, and then pay money to get in a helicopter and fly over it, if that's the best part of the attraction then I'm counting it). I'm rambling.
So 27 countries. I counted Qatar when we finally left the installation. I was driving, I always seem to be at the helm when interesting shit happens. But then again most people who can fly a 300,000lb airplane can also drive a stick shift in a country with slightly different traffic laws than our own, so who drives is usually decided by who either does or doesn't want to do it; I usually do because I think it's exciting and brings about that feeling of wonder and something new that no one's had at the wheel of a car since they were 16 and driving for the first time. And I think it's precisely that feeling which guides the urge in us to travel: something new.
We went to some Arabic restaurant for lunch in Doha. It was actually Yemeni, but that's like comparing Mexican food to Texan food: if you don't have the proximity to tell the difference then it's the same fucking thing. This restaurant was packed and the guy at the door told us we could sit anywhere we could find a seat, this included the floor. There wasn't a single table left available, so we had to decide between finding a different restaurant, or taking off our shoes and sitting on the floor.
This is why I think I've found my niche among travelers and pilots and people who are of the world, but don't even really seem to care because we do it all the time. We spend so much time crawling the globe that we become just as comfortable completely immersed abroad as we do with the comforts of home. When faced with the decision to sit on the floor to eat lunch, there was no "are we allowed to?"..."let's wait for a table"...or..."I'm not doing that." It was a simple agreement among the three of us: "Fuck it. I'm hungry"...and..."don't forget, it's rude to show the bottoms of your feet."
I asked Traver if he'd ever had a meal like this, while I used my hands and lack of silverware to tear off another piece of pita bread to dip into my mutton stew. "Nope, there's always been an open table." I think that pretty well summarizes my point. No matter how long you spend traveling, there is always something new, unintended or otherwise, and it is impossible to do it all. You may be able to try anything or go anywhere, but you can't experience everything, and you can't go Everywhere.
Everywhere is a concept tantamount to infinity. It's a kindle to the imagination, but in reality it's impossible. Everywhere is a coastline paradox: while finite in area, it's endless in measurement. As you zoom out, Everywhere gets very small, very confined, doable; but the closer you look, the bigger a task Everywhere becomes. Every continent is seven. Every country is 194. Every city is... well, you see the problem?
What about every language? Every road? Every nightclub? Every tiny family-run cafe? Including the one at the end of an alley in a neighborhood off the main road in a suburb of a city in Cambodia? Have you been there? That's a part of Everywhere.
I used to say "I want to go Everywhere twice." It was intentionally absurdist. Actually I still say it. Looking at my mental whiteboard of travels, I'm not doing half-bad upon first glance. I've been to Los Angeles twice, New York City twice, Miami twice (nine times actually). I've been to Cambodia twice, the Seoul Incheon Airport twice, Sevilla twice... the list goes on. But I've never been to the Staple's Center. I've never been to JFK. I've never been to Star Island. I've never been to Mondulkiri, I've never seen the Rosetta Stone and the Pyramids in the same day twice. I've never been to a mental institution. Again... the list goes on. The more you zoom in, the more you realize how astonishingly little you've managed to chip away at Everywhere.
That's why we travel. The world is an endless pot of new things, entirely new experiences. We can grow accustomed to and bored by the act of finding and exploring new places, but that's just physically being acclimated to movement. Still, you can never avoid the surreal feeling of a first encounter while on a quest for Everywhere. Everywhere is so boundless, so grand and everlasting by nature, it will never run dry.
You can go pretty much anywhere, outside of your hometown, and call it travel. It may not be far or particularly interesting, but it makes no difference in the eye of Everywhere. As you get further and further from home and the exotic smells and sounds flare and attack your sense of solace, Everywhere begins to grow. When it becomes addiction, and the countries and continents are getting checked off and you know how to say "cheers" in eight languages, Everywhere is still out there.
While you salsa dance in Spain with your wife or have a picnic on a sand dune, while you teach English to a class of orphans in South East Asia or hike through the jungle, while you're at the top of a Burj watching the sunset over an island shaped like a palm tree or while you fly over it five years later, it's growing. While you're climbing the Akropolis or trying to surf in Waikiki or eating with your hands on the floor of a Yemeni restaurant, you aren't getting any closer. Everywhere will grow and grow as you gain perception of simply how much there is.
Eventually every traveler will realize that Everywhere is not to be conquered; there's no end to it. And that is very good news! We can keep going, forever, traveling and finding things for the first time. And while Everywhere will seem like it gets bigger and bigger the more we see, it is as it always was: infinite.
Daunting infinity doesn't stop the urge to journey, it only promises the adventure will never cease. For some it's one of the best promises in life, elevated to a religious level making neighbors with the concepts of love or humanity. It's one of the few wonders in life that's sustainable. It's why I'm so grateful to have the job and life I've found myself in, because the world will always be out there. It's why my answer is always the same when people ask me, "where do you want to go the most?"
Everywhere.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Monday, December 23, 2019
Not Today
Good evening. Another couple'a days doing pilot shit.
I can't believe the massive majority of this base that is here solely to support the flying operations. It seems from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to bed, we're surrounded by other people who are also deployed, who are working 12 hour days, who are away from their families, and who are doing everything but flying.
At 4:00 hours to take off we get a phone call from the step desk, telling us our callsign, flight duration, and whether or not we're going fishing. At 3:15 hours to takeoff, a van driven by an airman shows up at the front door to our dorm. At 3:10 we arrive at Aircrew Flight Equipment and an airman issues us our helmets, survival radios, and any other fishing gear we need. At 3:00 we arrive at the squadron and start paperwork. At 2:30 we go into the vault and get our intel brief, by an airman. At 2:15 a sergeant gives us more classified fishing gear, and explains how to use it if it's something we're not used to. At 2:05 I say CYA to Curlee (he's the one who called us an hour ago) and we do our secret handshake. At 2:00 another airman driving a van shows up out front and we load up. At 1:55 we stop at the flight kitchen and pick up our meals. At 1:40 we clear security onto the flightline, and an airman with a gun checks our badges.
1:30 we arrive at the jet; Traver starts getting the brief from the crew chiefs, who are airmen, and I head upstairs to start doing what I do. At 0:30 we start engines. Once we're started up and on time, we're within twenty minutes to takeoff; the crew chiefs give us one last look over, unplug their headsets from the nosegear, and one walks about 75 yards in front of the jet and stands at parade rest. I grab a quick taxi clearance, confirm the door light is out, ring the crew bell, and call the checklist complete.
"Ready to go?"
"Ready."
I flash the taxi light. The crew chief moves from parade rest to attention, and then starts marshaling forward. Traver juices the power to about 50% (we're heavy), I stick my head out the window to make sure we won't flip any trucks, we move forward and turn out of park. When the plane hits 45 degrees through the turn, the crew chief snaps back to attention, and salutes. I stop everything I'm doing and focus on nothing but the crew chief; I salute back, and hold it for a second. Then it's on to the next checklist. "Hydraulic pressure brakes and steering."
At about that time the crew chief drops his salute and starts walking off, fading from view. And that signifies one complete cycle of hundreds of people working 12 hour shifts on the ground to get one plane in the air.
When I was a freshman in college our detachment commander was telling us about flying one day. He gave the exact same elaborate speech that I just gave, step by step, and ended it with the salute. This really fired me up as a teenager. I know this because I wrote about it on January 28th, 2012.
The speech was about respect and how when you're a pilot you get saluted by an enlisted airman who is partially responsible for the success of your plane getting off the ground. The process goes like this... He walks up to the edge of the line after you get your engines started. Once pretaxi checklist is complete, your marashaller will stand at attention and salute you. From the cockpit, you salute back. The marshaller drops his salute, moves to parade rest, and gives you an enthusiastic thumbs up. This essentially means, "Sir, have a great flight."
To be wearing wings and receive a salute by my marshaller I really don't think I could have a bad flight.
I can't believe the massive majority of this base that is here solely to support the flying operations. It seems from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to bed, we're surrounded by other people who are also deployed, who are working 12 hour days, who are away from their families, and who are doing everything but flying.
At 4:00 hours to take off we get a phone call from the step desk, telling us our callsign, flight duration, and whether or not we're going fishing. At 3:15 hours to takeoff, a van driven by an airman shows up at the front door to our dorm. At 3:10 we arrive at Aircrew Flight Equipment and an airman issues us our helmets, survival radios, and any other fishing gear we need. At 3:00 we arrive at the squadron and start paperwork. At 2:30 we go into the vault and get our intel brief, by an airman. At 2:15 a sergeant gives us more classified fishing gear, and explains how to use it if it's something we're not used to. At 2:05 I say CYA to Curlee (he's the one who called us an hour ago) and we do our secret handshake. At 2:00 another airman driving a van shows up out front and we load up. At 1:55 we stop at the flight kitchen and pick up our meals. At 1:40 we clear security onto the flightline, and an airman with a gun checks our badges.
1:30 we arrive at the jet; Traver starts getting the brief from the crew chiefs, who are airmen, and I head upstairs to start doing what I do. At 0:30 we start engines. Once we're started up and on time, we're within twenty minutes to takeoff; the crew chiefs give us one last look over, unplug their headsets from the nosegear, and one walks about 75 yards in front of the jet and stands at parade rest. I grab a quick taxi clearance, confirm the door light is out, ring the crew bell, and call the checklist complete.
"Ready to go?"
"Ready."
I flash the taxi light. The crew chief moves from parade rest to attention, and then starts marshaling forward. Traver juices the power to about 50% (we're heavy), I stick my head out the window to make sure we won't flip any trucks, we move forward and turn out of park. When the plane hits 45 degrees through the turn, the crew chief snaps back to attention, and salutes. I stop everything I'm doing and focus on nothing but the crew chief; I salute back, and hold it for a second. Then it's on to the next checklist. "Hydraulic pressure brakes and steering."
At about that time the crew chief drops his salute and starts walking off, fading from view. And that signifies one complete cycle of hundreds of people working 12 hour shifts on the ground to get one plane in the air.
When I was a freshman in college our detachment commander was telling us about flying one day. He gave the exact same elaborate speech that I just gave, step by step, and ended it with the salute. This really fired me up as a teenager. I know this because I wrote about it on January 28th, 2012.
The speech was about respect and how when you're a pilot you get saluted by an enlisted airman who is partially responsible for the success of your plane getting off the ground. The process goes like this... He walks up to the edge of the line after you get your engines started. Once pretaxi checklist is complete, your marashaller will stand at attention and salute you. From the cockpit, you salute back. The marshaller drops his salute, moves to parade rest, and gives you an enthusiastic thumbs up. This essentially means, "Sir, have a great flight."
And now, it's every day.
I had an IFE (inflight emergency) yesterday. This was my third time declaring an emergency, and first time squawking 7700 (we usually don't but Kuwait told us to). We were doing a pretty standard mission, and had just rendezvoused with an E-3.
A full bird Colonel was on the flight; they never get to fly anymore (that's not our fault, we all make choices) so once every couple of months they get lucky and can clear their schedules and get added to a line. It's really a huge pain in the ass for whatever crew get's unlucky enough to get stuck with him. The common analogy is flying with a 7-year-old in the right seat; they just wanna touch everything and feel like they're a part of it, but they don't have any legitimate flying experience in the past ten years and have no fucking idea what they're doing. I can't believe with all of the safety reforms and "no-rank-in-the-cockpit" briefings we get, this is still considered a "managed" risk and somehow worthwhile (they had their chance to go airline! They chose the Pentagon and a parking spot in front of the commissary!) Just get a guy who never flies but has more confidence than anyone on the entire base, and put him in the seat of an extremely difficult aircraft for a combat mission; all because he wants to.
Anyway, sorry for the rant (but really they wouldn't put a 55 year old ex-special-forces-guy back onto a Seal Team mission just for old times' sake). The Col who flew with us was actually pretty cool, probably best case scenario. He flew C-130's back in the day and recognized that he has no business at the controls, but he still wanted to go flying so he sat jump. Some crews get nervous and start fucking things up when an O-6 is watching them, kind of like being star-struck. Traver and I are not one of those crews. We were on our fucking A-game. Traver and I play varsity, and we like keeping it that way.
Later on, I was flying the rendezvous with the E-3 about 5 miles back and closing. Traver had ownership of the fuel panel and was moving product around in the tanks.
"Hey close the K/T switch, I think we have a stuck valve in 2," he said. I closed it, and started looking at the fuel panel to back him up. He continued messing with it. "Shit I think we just lost 3,000 pounds."
"Python, Whistler. Hey it looks like you guys are venting fuel, that's not intentional is it?" The receivers asked.
If they say it's coming from the left wing, we're done with this mission and our day just got a lot harder. "Whistler Python, no it's not. We were moving fuel but now we're trying to work it," I said. "Can you tell where it's coming from?"
"Oh yeah. It's definitely number 2."
Fuck. So went from suspected fuel leak to a confirmed fuel leak. And it's in the wing, which means it's a structural issue of the wing (we typically try to fly with no cracks in the wing), and it's right above a jet engine burning at 600 degrees Celsius. So this is what we in the industry call a problem.
The checklist for a main tank fuel leak is not something you want to read if you're aiming for peace of mind. "Slow to 255KIAS or lower, this prevents the wing from falling off"..."Limit bank angle and wing loading, this prevents the wing from falling off"..."Land as soon as possible. Remember? Because of the wing?"
We declared emergency and whipped up a clearance back to base. I did a very gradual 180, niiiiiiiice and eeeeeaaaassssyyyy. I think it's the closest I'll ever get to experiencing what defusing a bomb feels like. ("You either do it exactly right, or suddenly it's not your problem anymore.")
We had to land with the flaps at half mast, and at 300,000lbs things like runway length and braking factors come into play. So we dumped fuel. But you never say "dump fuel" over the radio, because the activists who listen to LiveATC.net will start making a bunch of noise when they realize how common it is, and then the media will run with it and grossly misrepresent an entire industry and it's just easier in the long run if you say "adjust gross weight". Everyone knows what it means. It is the epitome of aviation euphemism.
Then we shut down an engine, because of the whole flammable jet fuel pooling and vaporizing God-knows-where you don't want it. All of those systems and EP sims come in handy when you're no-shit trying to fly as smoothly as Godly possible with two throttles at 90%, one at idle, and one cutoff.
But the wing stayed on, and we landed to a parade of fire trucks and fanfare. The Colonel, the group commander, my squadron commander, and the D.O. all shook Traver's hand along with mine, with a sincere "Great job, we had 100% confidence in you guys."
There's a Game of Thrones quote that's really good and poetic. But depending on the circumstances it's more tongue-in-cheek than anything. It's usually thrown around jokingly in the modern age of "warfighting" in the Air Force.
"There is only one god, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: not today."
Some days it's funny. Some days it's not.
Friday, December 20, 2019
Dear American Soldier,
Good evening.
I've been sitting Alpha Alert for the past two days. That's when you get a "day off" but you still have to go in at 7am and do a preflight or two and then you can't do anything but sit in your room because you may have to take off within an hour. Some people absolutely hate it. I like to pretend it's a spa day. But the spa is in like a hurricane flood zone and you may have to be evacuated at any moment; that's why the spa is so cheap and not very popular.
When we went in to the squadron to grab the classified stuff to go do our daily preflight today we found that we had a new care package sent to us. Strangers, schools, retirement communities, churches, all the typical people who like to feel like they're helping, send us care packages. I love getting them and going through them... But... Some of them are pretty abysmal. It makes you think, "What the fuck do they think we're doing out here!?"
Examples:
- A couple of mini hotel shampoo bottles from La Quinta. ("They couldn't have sent a couple of mini whisky bottles from Delta?" - Traver)
- Two golf balls, dirty, clearly used. As if we're in the middle of the desert with nothing but a shovel and two sticks, and all that's preventing us from golfing are the balls. ("Why would they send this? We can just get those at the golf course off-base." - me)
- A copy of the Military Times, dated December 6th. The same magazine with free copies littered all over base.
- Granola bars. Hundreds of thousands of granola bars. All crushed and stale, because they were flown here over two weeks on 3 different C-17's and then went through Qatari customs.
"One of these days, we're gonna get a big bottle of scotch and a box of cigars," Traver said.
"Has that ever happened in your 12 years of deploying?"
"...no... so it's bound to happen soon."
The sentiment is sweet. We'd definitely rather get them than not. And if anything, it gives us a laugh at the perception of our conditions by strangers back home. And every now and then, you find a score. Homemade chocolate peanut buttercups that didn't get crushed. A snow-globe with your plane inside. There are so many little random things that people send that are clearly very thoughtful, Christmas lights are the perfect example. Or a deck of cards, where each card is a picture of a famous lighthouse in America. These are usually kept in the squadron, or shared among the community in our dorm living rooms. Postcards from random people's towns across the US is one I appreciate as well. Even if it's some Bumfuk place in Virginia with a picture of the only church in town, it's still nice because whoever sent it must be very proud of it and wanted us to see it.
However for me, the letters are the best find. As in - real letters. That may not be surprising, given my personality and what I appreciate most, but I'm not the only one who digs through boxes looking for that one letter that somebody put time into rather than just signing their name and church on a Christmas card.
We get a lot of drawings and handwritten notes from kids. You can never go wrong sending one of those. The more hilarious and misguided the better. A crayon drawing of a stick figure holding a knife, and another stick figure wearing a turban bleeding out next to him grasping his stomach, with the words in adorable all-capital child letters "DEAR SOLDIER. I HOPE YOU SHOOT LOTS OF TERRORISTS. I LOVE YOU - RACHEL", that stuff gets tacked to the bulletin board. "Fuck yeah Rachel. All in a days work." She'll probably grow up and run on the Republican ticket in 2044.
Other's clearly know we're pilots. I don't know how the logistics work of which care packages and letters get sent to which squadrons, but it would appear a small handful of them are specifically written to us... kinda. They're usually drawings of planes either dropping bombs or on fire, not sure which one is supposed to be us. Children are very violent.
Even still, the best find is a thoughtful letter from an adult. They're rare, but occasionally there's a typed out, one or two page letter from someone tucked into the tightly packed stacks of envelopes. Most of us who scavenge for them through the boxes of tootsie-rolls and baby wipes are extremely likely to write back, and maybe send a picture in response; a trade of sorts, of the little things valuable to both parties, strangers on the opposite side of the globe.
Today I finally found one. Pam, from Truth or Consequences New Mexico (the town that's named after an NBC show and not the other way around). She's a first grade teacher at the Manzano Christian School (good news, her class is praying for us), and she wrote a page long letter all about the kids' holiday festivities, and that they got a bunch of snow which is a rare occurrence in TorC (that's how people from Truth or Consequences say Truth or Consequences). Anyway, it became my goal today to write her back and send a picture of me and the crew in the cockpit.
But instead of making it easy and leaving a return address or email, she just left the name of the school and the words "1 Timothy 4:12". So I spent a while trying to find her on Facebook and on the school's website and finally just sent them an info request explaining I'm deployed and got a letter and we have Wi-Fi so it'd really make my life easier if I could just email her back instead of going the whole piece of paper on a C-17 route.
I've learned if you're going to send something to the troops, there's a pretty good chance it's not going to Delta Force in a foxhole somewhere, and there is already an abundance of tootsie rolls and baby wipes. One well-thought-out trinket, or one decently substantial letter, is equal to thousands and thousands of granola bars.
That being said, anything's better than nothing. Maybe if my flight cancels tomorrow I'll go out with my shovel, a stick, and my two newly found golf balls and play a few holes.
I've been sitting Alpha Alert for the past two days. That's when you get a "day off" but you still have to go in at 7am and do a preflight or two and then you can't do anything but sit in your room because you may have to take off within an hour. Some people absolutely hate it. I like to pretend it's a spa day. But the spa is in like a hurricane flood zone and you may have to be evacuated at any moment; that's why the spa is so cheap and not very popular.
When we went in to the squadron to grab the classified stuff to go do our daily preflight today we found that we had a new care package sent to us. Strangers, schools, retirement communities, churches, all the typical people who like to feel like they're helping, send us care packages. I love getting them and going through them... But... Some of them are pretty abysmal. It makes you think, "What the fuck do they think we're doing out here!?"
Examples:
- A couple of mini hotel shampoo bottles from La Quinta. ("They couldn't have sent a couple of mini whisky bottles from Delta?" - Traver)
- Two golf balls, dirty, clearly used. As if we're in the middle of the desert with nothing but a shovel and two sticks, and all that's preventing us from golfing are the balls. ("Why would they send this? We can just get those at the golf course off-base." - me)
- A copy of the Military Times, dated December 6th. The same magazine with free copies littered all over base.
- Granola bars. Hundreds of thousands of granola bars. All crushed and stale, because they were flown here over two weeks on 3 different C-17's and then went through Qatari customs.
"One of these days, we're gonna get a big bottle of scotch and a box of cigars," Traver said.
"Has that ever happened in your 12 years of deploying?"
"...no... so it's bound to happen soon."
The sentiment is sweet. We'd definitely rather get them than not. And if anything, it gives us a laugh at the perception of our conditions by strangers back home. And every now and then, you find a score. Homemade chocolate peanut buttercups that didn't get crushed. A snow-globe with your plane inside. There are so many little random things that people send that are clearly very thoughtful, Christmas lights are the perfect example. Or a deck of cards, where each card is a picture of a famous lighthouse in America. These are usually kept in the squadron, or shared among the community in our dorm living rooms. Postcards from random people's towns across the US is one I appreciate as well. Even if it's some Bumfuk place in Virginia with a picture of the only church in town, it's still nice because whoever sent it must be very proud of it and wanted us to see it.
However for me, the letters are the best find. As in - real letters. That may not be surprising, given my personality and what I appreciate most, but I'm not the only one who digs through boxes looking for that one letter that somebody put time into rather than just signing their name and church on a Christmas card.
We get a lot of drawings and handwritten notes from kids. You can never go wrong sending one of those. The more hilarious and misguided the better. A crayon drawing of a stick figure holding a knife, and another stick figure wearing a turban bleeding out next to him grasping his stomach, with the words in adorable all-capital child letters "DEAR SOLDIER. I HOPE YOU SHOOT LOTS OF TERRORISTS. I LOVE YOU - RACHEL", that stuff gets tacked to the bulletin board. "Fuck yeah Rachel. All in a days work." She'll probably grow up and run on the Republican ticket in 2044.
Other's clearly know we're pilots. I don't know how the logistics work of which care packages and letters get sent to which squadrons, but it would appear a small handful of them are specifically written to us... kinda. They're usually drawings of planes either dropping bombs or on fire, not sure which one is supposed to be us. Children are very violent.
Even still, the best find is a thoughtful letter from an adult. They're rare, but occasionally there's a typed out, one or two page letter from someone tucked into the tightly packed stacks of envelopes. Most of us who scavenge for them through the boxes of tootsie-rolls and baby wipes are extremely likely to write back, and maybe send a picture in response; a trade of sorts, of the little things valuable to both parties, strangers on the opposite side of the globe.
Today I finally found one. Pam, from Truth or Consequences New Mexico (the town that's named after an NBC show and not the other way around). She's a first grade teacher at the Manzano Christian School (good news, her class is praying for us), and she wrote a page long letter all about the kids' holiday festivities, and that they got a bunch of snow which is a rare occurrence in TorC (that's how people from Truth or Consequences say Truth or Consequences). Anyway, it became my goal today to write her back and send a picture of me and the crew in the cockpit.
But instead of making it easy and leaving a return address or email, she just left the name of the school and the words "1 Timothy 4:12". So I spent a while trying to find her on Facebook and on the school's website and finally just sent them an info request explaining I'm deployed and got a letter and we have Wi-Fi so it'd really make my life easier if I could just email her back instead of going the whole piece of paper on a C-17 route.
I've learned if you're going to send something to the troops, there's a pretty good chance it's not going to Delta Force in a foxhole somewhere, and there is already an abundance of tootsie rolls and baby wipes. One well-thought-out trinket, or one decently substantial letter, is equal to thousands and thousands of granola bars.
That being said, anything's better than nothing. Maybe if my flight cancels tomorrow I'll go out with my shovel, a stick, and my two newly found golf balls and play a few holes.
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
O M D B
As-Salaam.
I've spent about a third of my last 36 hours in the air. Building those airline hours. Today was a long and shitty one, albeit fun at times and just plain chill and relaxing for all of it. We were supposed to fly at about 1300, 9am alert, so naturally we all went to bed between midnight and one last night. But someone called in sick (believe it or not even Air Force pilots can play that card) and we were alerted by surprise at 5:30am, taking off in less than three hours. It didn't seem that bad until we discovered it was over an 8 hour flight. So we'd be bringing all three meals for the day on the plane with us, and we found out about it at the last minute.
It was an entertaining and secret-ish mission however, with the French. They were quite entertaining. Sipping their pinot and smoking their gauloises during AR while flying with their knees. I'm sure there's a clever baguette joke out there but I'm honestly just too tired to work for it. They were only twenty minutes late. We thought that was pretty good since that meant they had to have taken off within an hour or so of their scheduled takeoff time. We had 8 hours to come up with jokes on the French but I can't remember any of them, something about berets. Just use your imagination.
Yesterday was a great flight. We got tasked to do training over Muscat with the Omani Air Force. I realized almost immediately that this would put us directly over Dubai twice. I was working the radios all day so I had a little more control of the sight-seeing,
"Muscat control, what is the lowest you'll let us fly? FL200? Yeah we request that."
"Muscat control, request direct Tango Uniform Delta India Sierra. For uhhhhhhh... weather."
"What's at TUDIS?" Traver asked.
"The Palm Island."
So we got our cool pictures of the Palm and the Burj Khalifa from the cockpit, and now I've flown over Dubai. I had my music plugged into my Bose A20's, and had all the songs playing that Karen and I listened to driving through the skyscrapers on the 18-lane Sheikh Zayed freeway on our honeymoon.
It entirely felt like it wasn't even a day at work, deployed. I woke up at 4am excited. I was going to fly over Dubai, I was going to see a God's eye view of Muscat, the Al-Hajar Mountains of Oman, and I was going to refuel the entirety of the Omani Air Force (it's only six planes). It's days like this that really serve as a reminder to why it's worth it being a pilot. I could not have paid enough money to experience that. If Karen and I went on a trip to Dubai again, and there was some excursion package out of Skydive-Dubai or whatever where you paid money to fly a plane over the Burjes and the Palms, and then cruised over the dunes to Muscat, we'd do it!
But that doesn't exist, unless you're an Air Force pilot. Then it's just a Tuesday.
I've spent about a third of my last 36 hours in the air. Building those airline hours. Today was a long and shitty one, albeit fun at times and just plain chill and relaxing for all of it. We were supposed to fly at about 1300, 9am alert, so naturally we all went to bed between midnight and one last night. But someone called in sick (believe it or not even Air Force pilots can play that card) and we were alerted by surprise at 5:30am, taking off in less than three hours. It didn't seem that bad until we discovered it was over an 8 hour flight. So we'd be bringing all three meals for the day on the plane with us, and we found out about it at the last minute.
It was an entertaining and secret-ish mission however, with the French. They were quite entertaining. Sipping their pinot and smoking their gauloises during AR while flying with their knees. I'm sure there's a clever baguette joke out there but I'm honestly just too tired to work for it. They were only twenty minutes late. We thought that was pretty good since that meant they had to have taken off within an hour or so of their scheduled takeoff time. We had 8 hours to come up with jokes on the French but I can't remember any of them, something about berets. Just use your imagination.
Yesterday was a great flight. We got tasked to do training over Muscat with the Omani Air Force. I realized almost immediately that this would put us directly over Dubai twice. I was working the radios all day so I had a little more control of the sight-seeing,
"Muscat control, what is the lowest you'll let us fly? FL200? Yeah we request that."
"Muscat control, request direct Tango Uniform Delta India Sierra. For uhhhhhhh... weather."
"What's at TUDIS?" Traver asked.
"The Palm Island."
So we got our cool pictures of the Palm and the Burj Khalifa from the cockpit, and now I've flown over Dubai. I had my music plugged into my Bose A20's, and had all the songs playing that Karen and I listened to driving through the skyscrapers on the 18-lane Sheikh Zayed freeway on our honeymoon.
It entirely felt like it wasn't even a day at work, deployed. I woke up at 4am excited. I was going to fly over Dubai, I was going to see a God's eye view of Muscat, the Al-Hajar Mountains of Oman, and I was going to refuel the entirety of the Omani Air Force (it's only six planes). It's days like this that really serve as a reminder to why it's worth it being a pilot. I could not have paid enough money to experience that. If Karen and I went on a trip to Dubai again, and there was some excursion package out of Skydive-Dubai or whatever where you paid money to fly a plane over the Burjes and the Palms, and then cruised over the dunes to Muscat, we'd do it!
But that doesn't exist, unless you're an Air Force pilot. Then it's just a Tuesday.
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Bat-Shit Weather
As-Salaam Alaiykum.
Just got on the ground an hour ago. A solid 8.2 hours of exciting wartime flying. Actually it was about 2.3 hours of exciting wartime flying and 5.9 hours of flying in circles wondering how close to the contrail zone we are, and if we found it and it happened to be in our block altitude exactly how we'd set the FMS up to make a giant penis in the sky. Don't judge. Every pilot has at least thought about it.
But the 2.3 hours on the front and tail ends were some of my favorite flying: bat-shit weather! It was starting to rain (in the desert, again, I thought I'd only see that once but no) as we were starting engines and a downpour started. We were supposed to do some more black-ops tactical shit all night but then found out that it canceled and we were rescheduled to escort F-16's into-country and keep them topped off so they could play hall monitor in some airspace in the middle of nowhere. We took off at around 6pm, right at GCC rush hour and HOOOLLY SHIT was Qatari Departure not prepared for it. There were storms absolutely blanketing the Gulf with about sixty A380's from Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai all trying to just get the fuck out of there.
And then our poor F-16's who took off with us and were were clearly not used to this type of thing. Fighter pilots are all macho until they get the least bit uncomfortable and then they turn into baby ducks and cling to the tanker like a mama bird. I was flying the deparutre, dealing with crazy vectors and turbulence and hail and St Elmo's Fire. Since I was pilot flying I didn't have to worry about dealing with ATC on the radios but I was responsible for COMM1 and directing the formation of F-16's. Traver, my AC, was too busy dealing with a controller out of her skill level to have time to help me, so I was on my own leading the formation and to clear in the F-16s and steer them onto us through the weather. So that was fun, I love departures like that; every single person in the air over a metropolis is too busy to think about anything other than flying and getting out safely. Too busy for pictures, no glareshield GoPro vidoes; just you, your memory of it, your crew and a formation fighting through it.
Then coming back in it was more and more of it. I was still flying when we FENCE'd out and at this point Traver trusted me to exclusively own and operate COMM1 to run the formation. The F-16's were very concerned about weather over the Gulf. We normally don't even think about that sort of thing because, to us, either we'll get in and dodge the weather or we'll hold for 20 minutes or we'll divert. But F-16's are single cockpit and single engine and have like an hour of fuel. They get concerned quicker. So I agreed to get the weather for them. But we couldn't use datalink (like we'd usually use to get weather) because of the security protocols. I asked our controller for some weather info but Baghdad Center doesn't have WiFi so they couldn't help. I told the fighters that we're struggling with resources for getting weather. They asked us to please keep trying (MAMA BIRD cough cough). So now we're looking up classified frequencies of US Navy ships in the Gulf and trying to contact them. One finally worked and it sounded like an 18 year old girl on the other end. She said "Weather? In Doha? Uhh yeah I can get that for you!"
We spent the next five minutes debating whether she was contacting the weather squadron on base, or just googling "Doha weather" on her iPhone. She finally came back and said it was scattered at 15,000ft, light winds (it was not). We eventually got on frequency with a company 135 about 150nm ahead of us on the arrival. It actually happened to be a MacDill crew, Ryan and Rizvi, both of whom I'm good friends with, so I was able to get some weather updates through them.
"Yeah dude it's like fucking Independence Day out here."
"Oh." I said, and then called the fighters back. "Nickel flight, Python."
"Yeah we heard that. Do you guys mind if we stick with you and arrive as a formation through the weather?"
Not at all. So we dragged them almost all the way through the crap. It was worse than when we took off. Once we broke through and had a clear path to the base we worked their IFR approach clearance for them, I cleared them off ("Nickel Python you guys are cleared off Doha 123.63 squawk 8231 good luck getting in CYA!") and we let them rocket ahead to shoot the approach first so they could make terra firma.
Upon further debate once we were all on the ground, we mostly agree that the chick on the Navy vessel just went outside with binoculars.
For this next segment I need to explain some background. When I was packing my uniforms for the deployment, I put my three separate covers (uniform hats) aside to bring each variety: a normal OCP patrol cap, an OCP baseball cap, and a boonie...
"Why are you bringing a fishing hat?" Karen asked.
"It's not a fishing hat. It's a boonie. It's tactical. It's supposed to make it look like you aren't a person wearing a hat."
"But... it's a fishing hat."
"No... Vietnam veterans may HAPPEN to wear them when they go fishing, but that's because it's so tactical. You can jump in the bushes to hide from commies and the boonie will make you blend right in!"
Anyway. Today my flight was supposed to be some black-ops cosmic-top-secret shit (and it was gonna be TOTALLY BADASS until it got canceled and we switched to drag the F-16's). So since I was gonna be fighting the war all blacked out, I knew I needed to pack my equipment to match. I needed to dress tactical. So I dug the boonie hat out of the very bottom of my suitcase and was ready to go to war. I sent Karen and picture and then left for the crew van.
As soon as Traver saw me, "Why the fuck are you wearing that."
"We're doing black-ops! To be honest I'm surprised you're not wearing it. It's tactical."
"It's a fishing hat."
Then when we lost our cool mission Traver said it was because I wore the hat.
Just got on the ground an hour ago. A solid 8.2 hours of exciting wartime flying. Actually it was about 2.3 hours of exciting wartime flying and 5.9 hours of flying in circles wondering how close to the contrail zone we are, and if we found it and it happened to be in our block altitude exactly how we'd set the FMS up to make a giant penis in the sky. Don't judge. Every pilot has at least thought about it.
But the 2.3 hours on the front and tail ends were some of my favorite flying: bat-shit weather! It was starting to rain (in the desert, again, I thought I'd only see that once but no) as we were starting engines and a downpour started. We were supposed to do some more black-ops tactical shit all night but then found out that it canceled and we were rescheduled to escort F-16's into-country and keep them topped off so they could play hall monitor in some airspace in the middle of nowhere. We took off at around 6pm, right at GCC rush hour and HOOOLLY SHIT was Qatari Departure not prepared for it. There were storms absolutely blanketing the Gulf with about sixty A380's from Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai all trying to just get the fuck out of there.
And then our poor F-16's who took off with us and were were clearly not used to this type of thing. Fighter pilots are all macho until they get the least bit uncomfortable and then they turn into baby ducks and cling to the tanker like a mama bird. I was flying the deparutre, dealing with crazy vectors and turbulence and hail and St Elmo's Fire. Since I was pilot flying I didn't have to worry about dealing with ATC on the radios but I was responsible for COMM1 and directing the formation of F-16's. Traver, my AC, was too busy dealing with a controller out of her skill level to have time to help me, so I was on my own leading the formation and to clear in the F-16s and steer them onto us through the weather. So that was fun, I love departures like that; every single person in the air over a metropolis is too busy to think about anything other than flying and getting out safely. Too busy for pictures, no glareshield GoPro vidoes; just you, your memory of it, your crew and a formation fighting through it.
Then coming back in it was more and more of it. I was still flying when we FENCE'd out and at this point Traver trusted me to exclusively own and operate COMM1 to run the formation. The F-16's were very concerned about weather over the Gulf. We normally don't even think about that sort of thing because, to us, either we'll get in and dodge the weather or we'll hold for 20 minutes or we'll divert. But F-16's are single cockpit and single engine and have like an hour of fuel. They get concerned quicker. So I agreed to get the weather for them. But we couldn't use datalink (like we'd usually use to get weather) because of the security protocols. I asked our controller for some weather info but Baghdad Center doesn't have WiFi so they couldn't help. I told the fighters that we're struggling with resources for getting weather. They asked us to please keep trying (MAMA BIRD cough cough). So now we're looking up classified frequencies of US Navy ships in the Gulf and trying to contact them. One finally worked and it sounded like an 18 year old girl on the other end. She said "Weather? In Doha? Uhh yeah I can get that for you!"
We spent the next five minutes debating whether she was contacting the weather squadron on base, or just googling "Doha weather" on her iPhone. She finally came back and said it was scattered at 15,000ft, light winds (it was not). We eventually got on frequency with a company 135 about 150nm ahead of us on the arrival. It actually happened to be a MacDill crew, Ryan and Rizvi, both of whom I'm good friends with, so I was able to get some weather updates through them.
"Yeah dude it's like fucking Independence Day out here."
"Oh." I said, and then called the fighters back. "Nickel flight, Python."
"Yeah we heard that. Do you guys mind if we stick with you and arrive as a formation through the weather?"
Not at all. So we dragged them almost all the way through the crap. It was worse than when we took off. Once we broke through and had a clear path to the base we worked their IFR approach clearance for them, I cleared them off ("Nickel Python you guys are cleared off Doha 123.63 squawk 8231 good luck getting in CYA!") and we let them rocket ahead to shoot the approach first so they could make terra firma.
Upon further debate once we were all on the ground, we mostly agree that the chick on the Navy vessel just went outside with binoculars.
For this next segment I need to explain some background. When I was packing my uniforms for the deployment, I put my three separate covers (uniform hats) aside to bring each variety: a normal OCP patrol cap, an OCP baseball cap, and a boonie...
"Why are you bringing a fishing hat?" Karen asked.
"It's not a fishing hat. It's a boonie. It's tactical. It's supposed to make it look like you aren't a person wearing a hat."
"But... it's a fishing hat."
"No... Vietnam veterans may HAPPEN to wear them when they go fishing, but that's because it's so tactical. You can jump in the bushes to hide from commies and the boonie will make you blend right in!"
Anyway. Today my flight was supposed to be some black-ops cosmic-top-secret shit (and it was gonna be TOTALLY BADASS until it got canceled and we switched to drag the F-16's). So since I was gonna be fighting the war all blacked out, I knew I needed to pack my equipment to match. I needed to dress tactical. So I dug the boonie hat out of the very bottom of my suitcase and was ready to go to war. I sent Karen and picture and then left for the crew van.
As soon as Traver saw me, "Why the fuck are you wearing that."
"We're doing black-ops! To be honest I'm surprised you're not wearing it. It's tactical."
"It's a fishing hat."
Then when we lost our cool mission Traver said it was because I wore the hat.
Friday, December 13, 2019
As-Salaam Alaiykum
Good evening.
I landed about an hour ago. It was cloudy over the Gulf and most of the peninsula, so the views weren't as good today. But we did fly right over Kuwait at FL230 during the day which yielded a nice view of more Arabian skyscrapers, but I couldn't find the Towers which was a disappointment. I'll know where to look next time.
I enjoy flying over Basra, Iraq. You can see the Shatt Al-Arab, which is the river that forms from the merging of the Tigris and Eurphrates. You can follow both rivers northwest; and at night you can distinguish the rivers by the steady stream of lights along both with the stark contrast of dark desert between. Basra is currently getting fucked over by Turkey (who isn't right now?) because they've been stealing a major portion of the water from both rivers upstream of the Syrian border. Now the filtration infrastructure that was built in Iraq during the restoration period are no longer sufficient to keep up with the trash-to-fresh-water ratio, and by the time it gets to Basra it's all dry and toxic. And Basra's a pretty big city, with like two MILLION people. So that'd be like if New Orleans could no longer use the Mississippi delta for their water source. This is all in the news, just not in America (it's an election year that isn't 2004, no one gives a shit about Basra...)
I brushed up on my Arabic last night. I've been saying shuk'ran to the dining staff when they get me my meals, but they never seem to really respond to it. I couldn't tell if I remembered it wrong and have been mispronouncing it, or if the "local" workers are not actually Qatari, and actually from Bangladesh or Myanmar or somewhere that doesn't speak Arabic. I looked it up. I've been saying it perfectly. Then I remembered - it's Qatar, of course the minimum wage workers aren't GCC citizens.
For local languages, I like to learn "thank you" and "cheers" at a bare minimum. I already knew "shuk'ran", and they don't drink in the Muslim world, so "cheers" is N/A. But since I've been flying, I've picked up the habit of learning "thanks have a good day" or something similar for all countries I fly over, so I can say my sign off on the radio in the local dialect. This is very important to me. Well, Qatar and Bahrain and Kuwait and Dubai and Saudi, like a proper GCC territory, import all of their controllers from the UK or Australia, so I've just been saying "cheers have a g'nite mayte" and that's pretty much covered me locally. But once I get a little further out, as expected, it gets a little more ethnic.
For Baghdad Control, sometimes Kuwait, I've been saying "as-salaam"; which is literally saying "PEACE!" and changing freqs, but more religious. "As-Salaam alaiykum" is the religious and standard greeting in Muslim countries, Arabic for "peace be unto you"; and the response is "Wa-alaiykum salam" for "and unto you peace". So it's basically a Catholic Mass every time you run into someone. In radio brevity, "as-salaam" is what they say, so it's what I say.
I imagine some people may think it's odd that anyone in the US military would take the time to wish an Iraqi Muslim "peace be unto you" over the radio. Something about flirting with the enemy seems to be from where the uncomfortability stems. But Iraq and Islam aren't the bad guys, ISIS and Al-Qaeda are, and it's a lot safer and quicker to get through Iraq's airspace with their assistance, so there's really no logical reason saying "as-salaam" over the radio while on a USAF callsign would be weird or frowned upon. Quite the contrary, it's in our best interest in reality.
When we went into the intel vault for our daily intelligence brief today they asked us, "oh you guys were on Python XX flying to XXXXX the other night weren't you?" We said yes. "You guys had flags on the flight, we need you to sign the certificates. There are a lot of them." They handed us a clipboard filled with a stack of diploma-esque military certificates, with the crew's name typed out below a blank signature line on each. My name was in the middle of the three, "1st Lieutenant William D Loyd - Copilot".
I asked what I'm supposed to do with it. "Just harness your inner Lebron James, and sign them all." So I did. There were a lot of them so it took me a few minutes to get through them all. Each one had a different family's name: "In honor of... The Smith Family... this hereby certifies that this flag was flown into combat in Operation Inherent Resolve, witnessed and acknowledged by the following crew...etc".
I asked about it. It's considered an honor to receive a flag flown on a US Air Force aircraft on an actual combat mission. So for Gold Star families, or families affected by the war, or local businesses that show significant support for deployed troops (the list goes on but you get the point), we fly with a bunch of American flags somewhere on the jet (usually in the boom pod or somewhere that it can be seen by people during the mission) and then send it to those families with the certificate signed by the crew. So my name's on the mantel of a dozen or so families somewhere.
Well, that sums up about everything I can talk about. Until next time, as-salaam alaiykum...
I landed about an hour ago. It was cloudy over the Gulf and most of the peninsula, so the views weren't as good today. But we did fly right over Kuwait at FL230 during the day which yielded a nice view of more Arabian skyscrapers, but I couldn't find the Towers which was a disappointment. I'll know where to look next time.
I enjoy flying over Basra, Iraq. You can see the Shatt Al-Arab, which is the river that forms from the merging of the Tigris and Eurphrates. You can follow both rivers northwest; and at night you can distinguish the rivers by the steady stream of lights along both with the stark contrast of dark desert between. Basra is currently getting fucked over by Turkey (who isn't right now?) because they've been stealing a major portion of the water from both rivers upstream of the Syrian border. Now the filtration infrastructure that was built in Iraq during the restoration period are no longer sufficient to keep up with the trash-to-fresh-water ratio, and by the time it gets to Basra it's all dry and toxic. And Basra's a pretty big city, with like two MILLION people. So that'd be like if New Orleans could no longer use the Mississippi delta for their water source. This is all in the news, just not in America (it's an election year that isn't 2004, no one gives a shit about Basra...)
I brushed up on my Arabic last night. I've been saying shuk'ran to the dining staff when they get me my meals, but they never seem to really respond to it. I couldn't tell if I remembered it wrong and have been mispronouncing it, or if the "local" workers are not actually Qatari, and actually from Bangladesh or Myanmar or somewhere that doesn't speak Arabic. I looked it up. I've been saying it perfectly. Then I remembered - it's Qatar, of course the minimum wage workers aren't GCC citizens.
For local languages, I like to learn "thank you" and "cheers" at a bare minimum. I already knew "shuk'ran", and they don't drink in the Muslim world, so "cheers" is N/A. But since I've been flying, I've picked up the habit of learning "thanks have a good day" or something similar for all countries I fly over, so I can say my sign off on the radio in the local dialect. This is very important to me. Well, Qatar and Bahrain and Kuwait and Dubai and Saudi, like a proper GCC territory, import all of their controllers from the UK or Australia, so I've just been saying "cheers have a g'nite mayte" and that's pretty much covered me locally. But once I get a little further out, as expected, it gets a little more ethnic.
For Baghdad Control, sometimes Kuwait, I've been saying "as-salaam"; which is literally saying "PEACE!" and changing freqs, but more religious. "As-Salaam alaiykum" is the religious and standard greeting in Muslim countries, Arabic for "peace be unto you"; and the response is "Wa-alaiykum salam" for "and unto you peace". So it's basically a Catholic Mass every time you run into someone. In radio brevity, "as-salaam" is what they say, so it's what I say.
I imagine some people may think it's odd that anyone in the US military would take the time to wish an Iraqi Muslim "peace be unto you" over the radio. Something about flirting with the enemy seems to be from where the uncomfortability stems. But Iraq and Islam aren't the bad guys, ISIS and Al-Qaeda are, and it's a lot safer and quicker to get through Iraq's airspace with their assistance, so there's really no logical reason saying "as-salaam" over the radio while on a USAF callsign would be weird or frowned upon. Quite the contrary, it's in our best interest in reality.
When we went into the intel vault for our daily intelligence brief today they asked us, "oh you guys were on Python XX flying to XXXXX the other night weren't you?" We said yes. "You guys had flags on the flight, we need you to sign the certificates. There are a lot of them." They handed us a clipboard filled with a stack of diploma-esque military certificates, with the crew's name typed out below a blank signature line on each. My name was in the middle of the three, "1st Lieutenant William D Loyd - Copilot".
I asked what I'm supposed to do with it. "Just harness your inner Lebron James, and sign them all." So I did. There were a lot of them so it took me a few minutes to get through them all. Each one had a different family's name: "In honor of... The Smith Family... this hereby certifies that this flag was flown into combat in Operation Inherent Resolve, witnessed and acknowledged by the following crew...etc".
I asked about it. It's considered an honor to receive a flag flown on a US Air Force aircraft on an actual combat mission. So for Gold Star families, or families affected by the war, or local businesses that show significant support for deployed troops (the list goes on but you get the point), we fly with a bunch of American flags somewhere on the jet (usually in the boom pod or somewhere that it can be seen by people during the mission) and then send it to those families with the certificate signed by the crew. So my name's on the mantel of a dozen or so families somewhere.
Well, that sums up about everything I can talk about. Until next time, as-salaam alaiykum...
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Remembering the Colors (3)
Good evening. I'm still in Qatar.
I haven't been writing consistently for a while, despite churning out a few good pieces here and there. But I've decided I need to get back into it, regularly, especially while traveling. Even if they're short, the least eventful days of my life are more eventful than every single day of high school when I would crank out novels in the back of Hobbs' class. Plus it's healthy. It's good for the mind. So, even if it feels like nothing's going on in my life, and I have nothing to put down to paper, I'm still gonna try to do it.
I was reading my travel journals just now. Like my no-shit-pen-on-paper-in-a-leather-bound-notebook travel journals. They're short, because writing by hand has been obsolete since circa 1440 and cramping is a thing. Yet despite such brevity, excitement is captured. Pure excitement. A level of excitement and joy that can't be faked, that you can see it beaming from the ink. You can see it in the palm trees and skyscraper pictures I quickly drew in the opening pages. In it's blatancy I notice myself with a peculiar anxiety: I don't want to lose it.
In my writings throughout both high school and college, there is a theme incessantly inscribed. Even when I don't say it outright, it's very apparent: this thing... this, act of travel and experience and immersion and nonstop movement, is what I want to do for the rest of my life. My memory of growing up was diphase - at home, and not.
The memories of the latter had a brighter tint to it. And it you can quickly sniff out the fact that I firmly believed that living a life of movement would result in an entire life in that such tint: in color. When I wrote abroad, it was in color. And at home between epic trips it's not like I perceived life in black in white, but perhaps it was missing the red pixels, other days missing the blue, some days simply came out as orange. The conclusion was then drawn, continue to live in motion, and I'll always live vibrantly. Life in color.
Hence the anxiety that stirs about when I find myself in, say, Germany five years later, and the color is still faded. Memories still come out with a shade, and every quick remedy to slop the colors back on the pages failed. Travel was my fix to life! The only tool in my toolbox that I fostered growing up to combat this! That would be quite a shock to anyone. But upon further analysis, it's really not that big of a game-changer. The recipe to the elixir of life in color was simply a bit misinterpreted. I thought, nay believed, that movement and exciting travel would always keep the colors of my life bright. That is perhaps a critical oversimplification of the issue at hand.
In the epic adventures of years and years ago, the ones in full color, I was doing much more than just traveling. I was writing, sharing, learning, embracing and challenging myself. You could pick a thousand little intricacies of life and point to one thing, like... sleep, and say "well waking up at 5:00 in the morning is the secret to life" because every good day you've had involved waking up early. But that ignores every other aspect that may have lead to the result.
That's not to say that all of the colors aren't ever-present, all of the time. It just doesn't feel like they are; and we are nothing but our perception of ourselves, ego, constantly updating and being overwritten - colors erased. If a painting looks blue, it's blue. Our minds are not evolved to debate illusions. They're designed to evaluate things quickly, print out the picture, and put it on a shelf to fade even more. That would explain why we have memories that come out dull, they might be missing some of the colors.
So here I am. Writing in my little college dorm room in an attempt to make my life remembered in a little more color. But that is just one ingredient in the elixir, and I believe that your ability to remember the colorful things that happen throughout is no small part. If you can't recall the colors, than of course you won't perceive life as colorful.
And that brings me to the primary purpose of writing on a regular basis: Remembering the colors.
I flew yesterday. I saw the colors of Doha lit up at night with its' neon light shows and their super-stadiums (WHICH IS BUILT BY SLAVES - cough cough - I didn't say that) all lit up. Working the radios were easier than I expected. The local English is pretty acceptable, even in the sketchy countries. And on approach through Dubai or Bahrain or Doha it's all British controllers who took their expat tax bennies and fled the shitty European weather. Then after landing we went to the Fox for some beers to celebrate our first combat mission. The Fox is the vernacular for the Fox Sports Bar, which is a Fox sponsored sports bar in the middle of the army-ish side of the base. Leave it to Fox Media to capitalize off of American troops with the allure of German beer and British sports.
There are two residential complexes at the Deid. There's the CC and the BPC. The CC stands for "Coalition Complex" which is an Army-bullshit name for 30-to-a-room boarding if I've ever heard one. I'm living in the BPC, which is a large complex of new dorms, complete with private showers and bathrooms and kitchens and single rooms. No one knows what BPC stands for, but it's generally accepted knowledge that it stands for "Better People Complex".
Today I was supposed to have a show time of around 1600, and fly, but it was cancelled when I woke up at 11:00. I'm worried about getting seasonal affective disorder, despite being in an incredibly sunny location. The crew dorms are all blacked out with no windows so that you can fully adjust to whatever schedule you end up flying on. So if you don't go outside, you don't see the sun. On days where you're just waiting around for your flight to get un-canceled, it's easy to just chill out inside and watch Netflix. You could conceivably go days without seeing the sun if you don't pay attention, or if you fly late nights for a while.
To combat this I woke around the base for like 5 hours while listening to audiobooks, until the sun set. And that was my day.
I haven't been writing consistently for a while, despite churning out a few good pieces here and there. But I've decided I need to get back into it, regularly, especially while traveling. Even if they're short, the least eventful days of my life are more eventful than every single day of high school when I would crank out novels in the back of Hobbs' class. Plus it's healthy. It's good for the mind. So, even if it feels like nothing's going on in my life, and I have nothing to put down to paper, I'm still gonna try to do it.
I was reading my travel journals just now. Like my no-shit-pen-on-paper-in-a-leather-bound-notebook travel journals. They're short, because writing by hand has been obsolete since circa 1440 and cramping is a thing. Yet despite such brevity, excitement is captured. Pure excitement. A level of excitement and joy that can't be faked, that you can see it beaming from the ink. You can see it in the palm trees and skyscraper pictures I quickly drew in the opening pages. In it's blatancy I notice myself with a peculiar anxiety: I don't want to lose it.
In my writings throughout both high school and college, there is a theme incessantly inscribed. Even when I don't say it outright, it's very apparent: this thing... this, act of travel and experience and immersion and nonstop movement, is what I want to do for the rest of my life. My memory of growing up was diphase - at home, and not.
The memories of the latter had a brighter tint to it. And it you can quickly sniff out the fact that I firmly believed that living a life of movement would result in an entire life in that such tint: in color. When I wrote abroad, it was in color. And at home between epic trips it's not like I perceived life in black in white, but perhaps it was missing the red pixels, other days missing the blue, some days simply came out as orange. The conclusion was then drawn, continue to live in motion, and I'll always live vibrantly. Life in color.
Hence the anxiety that stirs about when I find myself in, say, Germany five years later, and the color is still faded. Memories still come out with a shade, and every quick remedy to slop the colors back on the pages failed. Travel was my fix to life! The only tool in my toolbox that I fostered growing up to combat this! That would be quite a shock to anyone. But upon further analysis, it's really not that big of a game-changer. The recipe to the elixir of life in color was simply a bit misinterpreted. I thought, nay believed, that movement and exciting travel would always keep the colors of my life bright. That is perhaps a critical oversimplification of the issue at hand.
In the epic adventures of years and years ago, the ones in full color, I was doing much more than just traveling. I was writing, sharing, learning, embracing and challenging myself. You could pick a thousand little intricacies of life and point to one thing, like... sleep, and say "well waking up at 5:00 in the morning is the secret to life" because every good day you've had involved waking up early. But that ignores every other aspect that may have lead to the result.
That's not to say that all of the colors aren't ever-present, all of the time. It just doesn't feel like they are; and we are nothing but our perception of ourselves, ego, constantly updating and being overwritten - colors erased. If a painting looks blue, it's blue. Our minds are not evolved to debate illusions. They're designed to evaluate things quickly, print out the picture, and put it on a shelf to fade even more. That would explain why we have memories that come out dull, they might be missing some of the colors.
So here I am. Writing in my little college dorm room in an attempt to make my life remembered in a little more color. But that is just one ingredient in the elixir, and I believe that your ability to remember the colorful things that happen throughout is no small part. If you can't recall the colors, than of course you won't perceive life as colorful.
And that brings me to the primary purpose of writing on a regular basis: Remembering the colors.
I flew yesterday. I saw the colors of Doha lit up at night with its' neon light shows and their super-stadiums (WHICH IS BUILT BY SLAVES - cough cough - I didn't say that) all lit up. Working the radios were easier than I expected. The local English is pretty acceptable, even in the sketchy countries. And on approach through Dubai or Bahrain or Doha it's all British controllers who took their expat tax bennies and fled the shitty European weather. Then after landing we went to the Fox for some beers to celebrate our first combat mission. The Fox is the vernacular for the Fox Sports Bar, which is a Fox sponsored sports bar in the middle of the army-ish side of the base. Leave it to Fox Media to capitalize off of American troops with the allure of German beer and British sports.
There are two residential complexes at the Deid. There's the CC and the BPC. The CC stands for "Coalition Complex" which is an Army-bullshit name for 30-to-a-room boarding if I've ever heard one. I'm living in the BPC, which is a large complex of new dorms, complete with private showers and bathrooms and kitchens and single rooms. No one knows what BPC stands for, but it's generally accepted knowledge that it stands for "Better People Complex".
Today I was supposed to have a show time of around 1600, and fly, but it was cancelled when I woke up at 11:00. I'm worried about getting seasonal affective disorder, despite being in an incredibly sunny location. The crew dorms are all blacked out with no windows so that you can fully adjust to whatever schedule you end up flying on. So if you don't go outside, you don't see the sun. On days where you're just waiting around for your flight to get un-canceled, it's easy to just chill out inside and watch Netflix. You could conceivably go days without seeing the sun if you don't pay attention, or if you fly late nights for a while.
To combat this I woke around the base for like 5 hours while listening to audiobooks, until the sun set. And that was my day.
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