Strength Through Unity

There's a good T-shirt slogan for a Joint Service Softball Team, right there.
Also, E Pluribus Seminar Unum.
Since we're Seminar One.
Also "Tunisian Rescue Squad." Since we'll be doing a North African wargame later on in the course.

But in the meanwhilst.
So far we've just gotten to know each other, with each of the services getting together to brief what they bring to the joint fight. We felt slightly bad for the one Marine in our group, but only slightly. The Japanese and Bulgarian reps also briefed us about their respective countries and militaries.
(What we learned about Bulgaria: it's the size of Tennessee, "Strength Through Unity" is the country's slogan, the cyrillic alphabet was invented there, and no, it's not Belgium. What we learned about Japan: Mt Fuji is a volcano waiting to happen.)

A day and a half of standard inter-service needling and facts and figure slide shows, but I was psyched to get to talk to folks about space for the first time in almost two years. And this was the education I feel I missed out on by going to AFIT, so I'm having a helluva time so far.

The lot of us carpooled to a Greek restaurant last night (a couple guys brought their wives) for esprit de gyro, and I drove a contingent of two AF and our token Army girl, showing off my Hybrid the best I could. Might be a weekly thing, getting together as a group. My nattily clad Army tablemate was dressed in red pants and a flowery shirt that had some spewing soda out their nostrils. I called him Cuban Pete.

Hopa!

You Know He Was a No Good Kid

A Jack Russell terrier born in Florida on Christmas Eve, 1990, as one of ten pups (and the largest, hence his name), Moose graduated from Orlando University with a bachelor's degree in obedience. He is famous for portraying "Eddie" on that grand vitesse of a show, "Frazier" in the 1990s. From the web:

Moose’s major contribution to the show [was] his famous look: an endless stare that unnerves the pompous psychiatrist played by Kelsey Grammer. Mathilde says it took a while to teach Moose his defiant stare. “It’s a cue thing. I point my finger up and he knows that no matter what’s going on around him, he must look at my finger in front of my face. It’s natural for him to look around when there are noises, so I had him do this when there were a lot of distractions. And because we always use it on the show, we still work on it every once in a while.”

I just learned that Moose passed through to that great doggie bed in the sky this week at the age of 15 and a harf.

Nauty by nature

Sunday I packed the Escape (much to Bailey's chagrin and Griffin's nonchalance) and drove to the SE corner of Virginia to start my ten-week course at Joint Forces Staff College. It was a little less than three hours getting here, driving the speed limit, so a much easier jaunt for driving back home on the weekends.
The school is attached to a Navy base, and as I stopped at the gate to ask the young Navy guard where "Normandy Hall" was, he pointed me in the right direction, snapped a sharp salute, and said, "Welcome Aboard." That's so cute. I checked into my VOQ, which is an odd set-up; three of us share half a duplex, with two of the rooms upstairs, and one room and the kitchen/laundry downstairs (I unfortunately had to drag all my crap up the stairs). But there's a bedroom and a living room with my own bathroom, so it'll do.

Monday was mostly orientation, first with just Air Force folks, then with everyone in the big auditorium getting addressed by the Commandant, Army Major General Quinlan, then the Joint and Combined Warfare School's Dean, a Navy Captain whose name I forget but it has "boat" somewhere in it.
We got a briefing from everyone and his brother, to include the education lady, who informed us that at the end of our course, we would have 15 credit hours that we could apply to a Master's Degree! My wife will be thrilled!
In the afternoon we were assigned to 18/20-man "seminars" where we'll hang out for the rest of the course (our room is on the third "deck" of the building). Around a U-shaped configuration of tables designed for lectures and discussion, we have one marine, a handful of each of the other services (though I'm the only space guy in our group), one Bulgarian Naval officer, and one Japanese airman. Seem a pretty good group. We had an icebreaker at the Club after class, and one Army guy showed up in a turtleneck, sportscoat with a flower in his lapel, and a brandy snifter.
He sits next to me.
But he's probably writing in his blog, "I'm sitting next to some freak with seven pets."
They're giving us Monday off for the July 4th holiday, so I'll get a good long weekend home.

We laughed from the diaphragmalot

Ainsley wore a dress yesterday.
More importantly, she had fabric from neck to knee. No openings, gaps, slats, slots, snaps, or avenues needed, as Grandad hadhad graciously offered to babysit YET again for the second half of our anniversary celebration -- tickets to go see Monty Python's SPAMALOT! in Washington, D.C. with a dinner beforehand at the Old Ebbitt's grill. I had the trout parmesan.

My jaw hit the forest floor when I learned Ainsley had bought tickets for us, and I'd been looking forward to the show for a month. She didn't know a thing about it but was happy because I was happy. That's like me taking her to some Brookes & Duncan country concert. That's love, right there.
Reading the program, however, she saw that the musical was based on the "Holy Grail" movie, which she'd seen maybe fifteen years ago (at my Dad's! when we weren't even dating! how strange!) so at least she had some reference point.
The show was just wonderful, start to finish; it never gives you the opportunity to stop laughing. And we had great third row seats just off to the side, so we could see everyone's facial expressions, feel the thump of the dancing, catch everyone's spittle.

Catchy songs, great sets, clever humor, bad puns (my favorite kind) -- as when a girl pulls a cart full of hay across the stage just in time for the company to sing, "Hey!"

Dad had even gotten Ryan to sleep in his crib, so a stress-free, wonderful date night.

Of course, then there were the rough 12:30-to-5:30 am hours, but that's for the baby book.

Model Citizen

Ryan had his eight-month check-up (two days early) on Monday, and everything checks up and down fine. Growing steadily, he's at 20lbs even, and 28 1/2 inches long, right where he's supposed to be. The Doctor was very pleased with his progress and the shrinkage of his fondant.

It's the squishy part of the head.

Up top. The front of his head is squishy, too, but it's supposed to be. Those are cheeks.

Although we learned that a skin rash Ryan had in Dayton for a couple days might have been a virus, we're still thrilled that he has lead a tremendously healthy life so far as he makes the last quarter lap around the sun. A cold in November, a faceplant to the tub this spring, and countless Griffin kisses are the extent of his maladies. We would just like to get him to learn about the Joy of Sleep.

The Beast with Two Backs

Let's just say it's a good thing that WWIII didn't start during any of my shifts in the ICBM Launch Control Center when it was my turn to sleep.

My mini-me delivery-o' crap from Dayton was supposed to be delivered Monday "evening" (after the driver called Saturday wanting to drop it off on Father's Day and I politely told him not so much) so I called the driver around 3 to get an estimated time of arrival.
"Hello?"
"Is this the Covain driver?"
"Yeah."
"This is Major Gottrich, trying to get status of my delivery?"
"We're still doing another order."
"... so..."
"I'll. let. you. know."
Nice.
But after Ainsley, Ryan and I watched a terrific thunderstorm from the comfort of our front porch swing, I called the driver for status around 7:30.
"Hello?'
"Hey, it's Major Gottrich again."
"...yeah?"
Oh just GUESS what I want. Take a SECOND and GUESS what I could POSSIBLY want.
"Trying to get status on my delivery?"
"It'll be tomorrow morning."
"What happened to this evening?"
"Look, it's not my fault, we were deLAYed and I SAID we could deliver it YESterday and *inaudible* at my own expense and *inaudible* and there's nuttin I can do..."

I pointed out that he had actually told me he was going to let me know and yet here I was having to call and find out he wasn't coming that night, but that's fine, I'm breezy, could they please come first thing in the morning, my wife and I have an appointment on base at 2pm.
"We'll see what we can do."

So after getting up twice in the middle of the night to settle Ryan (probably a fourth of the number of times Ainsley did), and having a real cool dream about me getting a confession from a septuagenarian arsonist until she bolted and lost me in the hospital cafeteria, Ainsley came into the bedroom at 7:30am calling my name authoritatively, as in Get Up Now, not Good Morning Sunshine.

"The movers just called; they're around the corner. You might want to get up."
"muouah!" I said.
I quick-zombied over to my open suitcase on the floor, grabbed a t-shirt, and put it on. Backwards. I sighed. I pulled my arms out, twisted the shirt around, and put my arms back in. And it was still on backwards. "what the HELL!?" So then Ainsley thought it was a good idea to get Ryan away from me before I fell over and broke someone.

Nice enough guys; we helped them out by telling them to just throw everything in the garage except for a sleepersofa. Half the stuff is going back to a friend of mine on a U-Haul Wednesday, and we just felt it easier to deal with the re-mergement of our lives slowly, rather than having boxes in every room in the house. As it is, we have too much crap. Should be entertaining finding a home for all this stuff. I mean, four cheese graters? C'mon.

June 18th -- The Best First Father's Day Ever

I know I married good, but Whoa Nelly Fitty Cent am I a lucky hombre and a half.

Ainsley's parents arrived Saturday afternoon (Hey Long Time No See), as she had planned something for us, keeping it all under wraps subterfugey like. My dad came over, too, and before we enjoyed a lovely spinach lasagna dinner with garlic bread and boujoulais nouveaux (home-cooked meals! The concept!), she had us open our presents on Father's Day Eve, for good reason -- she had bought me, my father, and her father, tickets to take Ryan (for free) to the Washington Nationals/New York Yankees game on Father's Day up at RFK Stadium! With shirts and hats and an outfit for Ryan, too! His first baseball game! What a logistical nightmare! I mean, what a wonderful idea!

The plan was for us to ride the Metro up to the stadium, give Ryan a taste of the game and maybe a bite of a hot dog bun, and then Ainsley and her mom would come pick him up after a couple hours, leaving us adults to battle the crowds without a stroller to mess with. Unfortunately, due to stalled subway traffic, by the time we got to our seats, it was already the bottom of the fourth inning, and Ryan needed a beer.
Sorry: diaper change.

Lots of dads in the stadium for the game on a hot 92-degree day; by chance, the seats Ainsley purchased were in the corner under some shade, which made it much more comfortable. It also turned out to be the most people to ever attend a single baseball game at RFK ever (tons of Yankees fans in the stands). To top it off, after a pitcher's duel, the Nationals won it in the bottom of the 9th with a two-run home run by Ryan (!) Zimmerman. In all the professional games I've been to (and we're talking over ten!), I've never seen a game end like that. What a finish, what a game, what a day! And dad brought peanuts!


Still weird to hear "Happy Father's Day" be directed my way. I mean, I've had Bailey for eight years. :) But it's been great getting some quality time with my boy. MY boy. My boy. Weird. Although he's got my smarts. We were hanging out on the living room floor Saturday while Mommy was upstairs showering, and when she came down the stairs, Ryan was facing away from her.
"Ryan," I commanded joshingly, "Look behind you."
And he immediately turned his head back to see her.

Ainsley and I just kind of blinked at each other.

June 15th-16th -- Dayton & 500

I didn't know when the packers were going to arrive, and my paperwork said I had to be there by 0800 just in case, so after five hours of hotel snooze, I jogged back over to my apartment to finish getting ready. The movers arrived around 9:30, youngish Jason and RipVanWinkleish "Pappy", nice fellers. Jay joined them with the truck later, and they were out of there by around 1:45.

Cleaned the joint until around 6, then grabbed some Skyline Chili, as I had grown addicted to the stuff and it's not a chain they have around here. At 9, I went back and packed up the car with everything except the fridge stuff and my bike (didn't want to leave that out on the street), then strolled up to the Riverscape to see if there would be a laser show up against the fountain. I had never caught a show, and thought it might be neat to see. It was no Pink Floyd concert, but a neat thing for a downtown. I wandered past my apartment building for the last time...pain in the ass, thin walls, extra expense, but it was home. We made it work.

The next morning I woke up at the same time to finish packing and cleaning up the smallest crumbs from the edge rails of the fridge. The landlords know I'm Air Force, want to leave a good impression. I had washed the baseboards, mopped the kitchen floor tiles with Clorox sheets (I was sans mop) and pretty much smelled like bleach for a day and a half.
Of course, even though I had borrowed the elevator key the day before, and the office dude said he would put my check-out on his calendar, there was no one around at 8:45 when I was ready to leave. The cleaning lady gave me his cell phone number, but he didn't answer it..she said the other guy would be in at 9. So I went out and fed the meter some more and stewed on the waiting room couch. I have a 500-mile trip ahead of me, pal, that I wanted to start fifteen minutes ago, let's go. At 9:10 the first guy strolled in, said he doesn't take calls from strange area codes, and then said "Well, I'm sure your apartment's fine, we don't need to check it out," which is at once flattering and a bit annoying. "But...I cleaned the little knobby deals on the bottom of the toilet covering the screws..."

And of course I get outside and the Culligan watery delivery truck is double-parked next to my Thunderbird. I just smiled.

The trip home was uneventful, though on a whim I hung a right on I-77 rather than continuing on I-70; I figure I've seen enough of Wheeling in the last two years, let's try another route. Very pretty, hilly, central West Virginia route 50 took me over to I-79 and back up to Morgantown and my usual route. I got in just after 7 pm, just before little tyke's bed time. Griffin was the first to see me from his perch in the foyer, standing up with a stretch and a wave of his tail. "Oh. It's you," it seemed to say.

One address again. One home. A land-line phone! Very weird feeling, this non-temporary stay here with my own wife and child. I'm sure it's an adjustment for all. It's a lot hairier here, that's for sure. And within a half-hour of arriving, I had ingested two-week-expired milk and being asked by my wife to remove the dead rotting possum from the backyard that we hope died of natural causes and not Griffin causes.

June 14th -- The Longest Day

His Majesty again felt like sleep was for the weak and a-ged, so a very groggy mommy was up at 6 trying to pack and gather things while I showered my grogginess away for my final outprocessing. First, we all went out for a hearty breakfast to fill them up for their journey back east (with a gentle hint to Ainsley's father that he may have to drive part of the way).

Usual bureaucratic nonsense. But at least we were in an auditorium and could sit down instead of waiting in hour-long lines like we did last year for inprocessing. I had a letter in my UPRG (personnel folder) from the dental office that said they couldn't find my records and they would send them on to my next location. I found this moderately humorous as I had gone to pick up my dental records two weeks ago.

More handshakes and Eddie Garlic-chucks to the shoulders, and AFIT was a thing of the immediate past. Starting work on getting my apartment cleaned up would have been nice, but I had one more shot to get through first.

"You're calm!" the nurse exclaimed, marveling at my 138/64 blood pressure as I checked in. I was just glad I wasn't two hours late getting seen like last time. Figured the IV would be a better bet, to avoid the excrucitorture from last time. Only the nurse couldn't find the vein in my hand, poke poke jab adjust poke sorry try again in a different spot. After twenty minutes waiting on my back (when I think I actually fell asleep) for Dr. Reddy to "finish with a new patient", he came into the room, all chatty because he had seen me on the same flight out to DC over Memorial Day. Small talk about how much studying I had to do, oh, really, where am I going next then, and then they put in the "relaxant" and this time I didn't fight it. Sure, knock me out, what the hell. I don't remember a thing, except suddenly grinding my hips back and forth in pain, as if he had set off a hand grenade the size of a Monopoly game piece in my lower spine. Someone said "don't move your legs too much" and I think someone put more "relaxant" in me. I don't think I opened my eyes through the whole deal. And then I was done. I was wheeled into a recovery room where I snoozed a bit longer until someone told me I was ready to go. I asked to talk to Dr. Reddy about my follow-up care here in Virginia but I can barely remember anything he told me. Drunk and spacey, I bought a bag of Cheeze Nips from a vending machine to soothe my stomach and walked back to my apartment, crashing on the couch with my legs up for about forty-five minutes.

A fire truck woke me up, and I felt good enough for a cup of tea. I had a long night ahead of me, laundry, some cleaning, but mostly separating the to-be-packed from the to-be-Thunderbirded (uniforms, plants, important papers, father's day gifts, road trip CDs, etc.). I ended up throwing a bunch of stuff in the tub as the holding area. The bathroom and bedroom a cluster, I walked over to my hotel room a couple blocks away (where I'd stayed the night I'd arrived in Dayton in May of 05) taking another batch of time to upload some photos, catch SportsCenter and unwind. I turned the light off at 2:30.

July 13th -- Put a Cork In It

Okay, that's just the wine talking. Put a FORK in it. That's the expression. I have the sheepskin. Let's call it a degree.

A good and a hard day.
The culmination of several weeks of hard work and several dozen others of being bored out of my skull and wondering why I had the Appalachians between me and my family to learn about leadership principles UH-gain or Macroeconomics for the second and hopefully last friggin time.
The 10 o'clock awards ceremony was a little frustrating -- I knew I didn't have the grades for Distinguished Graduate, but I still wished character counted for something, as my least favorite classmate, a dork with the personality of a stale muffin, had been selected DG. It was based solely on those getting a 4.0. I learned the next day that someone had actually dropped out of a class after getting an A- on the midterm, and then retaken the class the next term in order to keep his 4.0 intact. Now THAT's ambition. DG was nice out of SOS, but I was more thrilled to receive my "outstanding contributor" certificates, voted on by my flight mates. I had half-heartedly hoped on sneaking in under the radar, that the faculty saw more in me than my lack of grasp of the National Savings Rate.
Still, as I stewed with my 3.92 GPA and wondered the what if's, I began to get more and more upset at myself. I had all but promised Ainsley I would get DG, as a sort of justification for being separated for 13 months. I even put myself in for a volunteer service award, just so she could be somewhat proud of me, see me go up to the stage once, but that organization gave the award to its outgoing president, who had been at AFIT for 3 years (had I known he was eligible, that a guy was supposed to compete with one year's service with someone else who had 3, I wouldn't have bothered).
Of course, Ainsley could care less about accolades and cannot stop telling me how proud she and Ryan are of me. It was still hard to see the worth in it all. Not in the education, but the separation. Everything she had had to do by herself over the preceding year suddenly hit me over the head like a waterfall, as our little boy smiled at me from the center of the fold-out sofa bed.

We had to report at 6 in order to be briefed on how to line-up and walk in to the hangar, and it was kind of a cluster. 200 people with nary a care in the world are not going to pay much attention to your overhead projector show, pal. I tried my best to provide the most sarcastic comic relief I could, as -- stop me if you've heard this before -- is my nature. But when the guy says that General Fogleman is going to present the top graduate with an award and the slide reads "The winner will wait till his/her name is called, cross the stage, and shake hands with Gen Fogleman while he gives you the plague", someone has to point that out.

More of the same in the main auditorium, as a typical graduation ceremony ensued; each name called one by one, a smattering of applause from the back from those that knew said graduate. A few of us applauded for each, but we had comments for a lot of folks as their names were read off (such as when Manuel's name was pronounced "man-u-al").

"Major Ralph E. Patterson, the Fourth." "That's an awful lot of Ralphs." "It is."
"Major Earl W. Jaworski." (Me, in my best Jason Lee accent): "Mah name is Earl." (When you get into the second hundred set of names, anything sounds funny.)
"PhD candidate Capt Nathan P. Sherman. His dissertation, Analysis and Control Of Unreliable, Single-Server Retrial Queues with Infinite-Capacity Orbit and Normal Queue, says that by extending basic results in retrial queuing theory, one can mathematically characterize congestion measures and the impact of failures on system performance." "Yeah, well, I did a book report on 'Coors'."

A few handshakes at the end, and I was done. Later on, my wife asked if I had made any friends here, and it was hard to say. I would love to work with some of these folks again, and probably will. But as I wrapped up my computer files the next day and copied some WBLS, banquet, and Graduation photos to my thumb drive, it occurred to me that I never once considered bringing my camera to any of these events, and no one really asked me to join them in their group shots, either. Shy, independent, aloof, indifferent...hard to say. My standard and valid answer is that fun is no fun without my wife around. I wasn't 'me' in Dayton. I was a ghost, with heart and mind 500 miles away. Perhaps people sensed that.

"You have two Masters," my wife said softly.
...'too many, more like,' I thought.

June 10th-12th -- Talk to me, Goose

Cleaning took longer than expected, and I was still vacuuming when I received the call that they were out front. Ran downstairs, slapped the Colonel a high-five, dove in to kiss the wife and poked my head in the back seat to see my son and mother-in-law. More my son. She understands.
The Fouldses stayed in the St Clair Lofts 2-bedroom model apartment for the weekend, and as it had a lot more space than my place, we hung out in there a lot. After a quick bottle of vino, we strolled over to the Oregon District and had dinner at Cafe Boulevard, which my Academic Advisor had recommended to me. A European-themed restaurant with ties to Germany, I amazingly bypassed the wienerschnitzel to join everyone in a gallette, kind of like a crepe only much much better. Ryan was in rare form, very well behaved, enjoying himself, loving the "Where's Ryan" game under his napkin, and even grabbed the waitress' hiney for good measure. My boy.

Sunday was a gloomy, rainy day, so we spent a lot of it on a driving tour of Dayton, to include the neighborhood where the Wright Brothers grew up, then contrasting that with where they ended up (the Hawthorne Hill mansion, plus a bunch of other ridiculously opulent castle/homes in that area), down to Centerville for some ice cream, then up to the Air Force Museum to recon the graduation location, since I wouldn't be able to show them where to go the night of (I had to report an hour earlier). Dinner at Abuelo's with the Smiths, who had loaned us a stroller and a Pack N Play (which in our case was an Unpack and Stackstuffon, but at least we tried), was muy Mexican. If you're into that, and everyone else was, so hue jolanda di serpico.

Monday was just gorgeous, perfect for a stroll around town, specifically the Riverscape walk and lunch on Main Street. After various nap attempts in the afternoon, a friend from AFIT (and Minot) joined us for Irish dinner fare at the Dublin Pub back down the other end of the Oregon District. Back at my apartment, Ainsley tried to get Ryan to sleep while I put my uniform together for graduation -- it had been so long since I had worn service dress, I had all new badges and ribbons I needed to line up. Good thing I had my wife around to dress me.

Still teething like crazy mad, Ryan's sleep patterns over the visit left a lot to be desired. Well, just one thing, really. We took his every-2-hours awake spurts in shifts (heavily weighted towards her), so we probably looked like a couple zombies by the time Tuesday rolled around.

June 9th -- Crippen Doll to Crib Rehaul

Last day of WBLS went fairly smoothly -- NASA astronaut CAPT Bob Crippen spoke to us about his three shuttle flights (including the very first), and afterwards he was mobbed by autograph hounds and well-wishers, to include some lady who had an actual Bob Crippen action figure. (As a post-script, my wife tells me later that years ago, when she worked for NASA, she was in Bob Crippen's chain of command. !)
Col Chuck DeBellevue was a fighter ace with the "Triple Nickel" in Vietnam, and he showed some cockpit footage of a couple MiG shootdowns; he was followed by Brig Gen "Tex" Hill, who is as old as them, having flown with the "Flying Tigers" with Clare Chennault in India-China during WWII. Frail and hard to hear, it's likely he won't be telling his story very much longer... all the more we should be honored.
Spent lunch chatting with "Crip" about the space program, mentioned that I was reading Reagan's autobiography where he had mentioned how the first shuttle flight had uplifted the spirits of Americans; asked him if he had gotten to meet the President afterwards, and he said he had, a few times. Nice fella, he said.
The afternoon began with Gene Kranz (a former AF jet pilot!) recalling his days as a Flight Director with a well-rehearsed but mesmerizing accompanying slideshow, specifically about the Apollo 13 disaster, even though we all knew what had happened. (One jaw-dropper: the 20-man mission control crew during the Apollo 11 moon landing? Average age? 26.)
Next, Lt Col "Buddy" Archer, a Tuskegee Airman from WWII awkwardly went fifteen minutes past his allotted time, with WBLS staff members standing, crawling up the stairs, trying to get his attention, trying to get applause started to cut him off... it was a wonderful talk up to that point, though. Finally, Col George "Bud" Day, a six-year POW in Vietnam and a Medal of Honor winner closed the show. As I was putting his microphone on his lapel, trying like hell to avoid the Medal around his neck, I told him that I had actually worked with his son, Lt Col George Day, Jr., when I was stationed in Turkey. That must have just about made his minute.

What a show. Twelve wonderful speakers. And this Friday, what does the base paper have to say about a Medal of Honor winner, a retired four-star, two other generals, and a half-dozen other living legends coming to visit AFIT? Zilch. Which makes me feel a little better about my Perryville article being snubbed...if it was even submitted at all. Makes me wonder how hard our Public Affairs shop pushes to have things reported.

Anyhoo. After months of planning, the last big AFIT project is done. All that's left is to graduate. Spent the night cleaning up the apartment for the imminent arrival of Ainsley & Littleshorts and the Fouldses.
It took a while.
I hadn't seen some parts of my floor in months.

June 8th -- Wiggle Wings to Jungle Raisins

Up at 0600 to get to the auditorium by 7, check out the mikes, make sure the slide shows were working, doing my thing. Around 7:30, I went upstairs to the Commandant's office and miked up the first three speakers so I wouldn't have to scramble to find them between breaks. Two I had seen the night before at the Mansion, and Gen Jumper (ret) I knew from our accidental encounter at the Pentagon. Plus me using him in quotes in a bunch of my lessons. I'm sure he didn't mind.

Col Halverson was first -- he was one of the pilots who delivered goods to the folks in West Berlin after WWII, and became known as The Candy Bomber after he met with some children, gave them his only two sticks of gum, saw how they reacted (tearing them into fifteen small pieces and distributing amongst themselves), and began secretly dropping candy on small parachutes during his delivery runs. Word got out back home and American schools and candy companies joined together to make tons of parachute packages for the children. He'd get letters from kids ("I'm too short to reach above my friends, so please drop candy at the following address next time...") and adults later in life, who told him that the chocolate bar meant more than food, it was a symbol of hope, that someone out there still cared about them and their freedom. Fantastic story.

Gen Jumper was pretty funny, and gave a good speech -- I had never heard him talk before -- though a classmate said he'd heard different parts of that same speech a half-dozen times already.

Maj Tom Griffin was a navigator on plane #9 that took off from the USS Hornet during Doolittle's Raid on Japan in retaliation for Pearl Harbor. He poked fun at Halverson, calling him a punk kid at 86, and that he (Griffin) had four years on him, so he was going to sit down during his retelling of a marvelous story of redemption and survival in China.

A quick greek lunch in my sturdy tents, then I had to go mike up the afternoon players -- Florene Miller-Watson, another 86-year-young member of the Women's Air Service Pilots, who kept touching my chest and upper arms while talking to me, the scamp; Homer Hickam, author of "Rocket Boys" (and Vietnam Vet); and Brig Gen Olds, who is our nation's only Fighter Ace from two non-consecutive wars (WWII and Vietnam). Gen Olds didn't wear a tie, so I had to clip his mike to his coat collar, which kept rubbing against his shirt and pissing him off. And when he stood up from his chair, his big belly pushed the remote receiver off his belt and the whole unit came crashing down to the floor. I quickly retrieved it from my second-row vantage point and quietly hoped the next day's speakers would wear ties. Those are easy, uh, clip-ons, if you will.

That night was our graduation banquet, with the WBLS lecturers as our guests of honor, naturally, so everyone had to change into their monkey suits. Which suited the salad just fine, let me tell you, pile of tree leaves and sad nuts and dates and yellow raisins that it was. "Don't you want your salad?" Meg asked. "I'd LOVE a salad. THIS, on the other hand..." So I just held my friends' 3-month-old daughter and let them eat before joining the buffet. A fifty-piece AF band played some great songs after dinner, with a rolling slideshow in the background showing some reminiscent moments from our time at AFIT (I had snuck a picture of Ryan and me in there, so I got to point him out to everyone).

Still, these things are no fun without my wife, so I scooted out first chance I had. Second late night in a row after an early morning, and one last WBLS day to go.

June 7th -- Touched by a Kranz

I forget what I did in the morning; perhaps more cleaning of the apartment in preparation for family visitation. But the afternoon was geared towards helping the Food Committee put up four 15-foot tents and countless tables and chairs for the WBLS lunches Thursday and Friday. The entire WBLS staff (20 or so) was supposed to attend, but there were only six or seven of us. I'm sure good reasons could be found in a magic papoose somewhere.

Changed clothes inside AFIT into my WBLS Nice Pants Uniform, did some last-minute computer work, and drove over to the other half of Wright-Pat to pick up the bus for the night's festivities. The transportation folks had asked if we wanted the big bus or the small bus, and I said if we only had 12-15 people, and I'd be driving around neighborhoods, it'd be easier with the small bus (though later I wasn't sure if I was authorized, as I was only certified on the 44-pax bus, but that e-mailed question went unanswered, so any laws broken was the fault of a slothous woman). The bus wasn't that much smaller, maybe eight rows of seats as opposed to ten, but it turned out to be a lot more modern, with an electronic dashboard display panel, and a curious lack of a connected door handle. A little switch to my left read "Open/Close Door" so I pressed it. *click* went the door as it remained open. I pressed the lever the other way. *click*
Hmm.
So I turned the bus off and went inside and said hey small question how am I supposed to close the door. (There's a 'safety' of sorts above the door that I had to turn off first.)
I drove back to AFIT to pick up my passengers, but at the appointed hour, only five people were aboard, plus a Colonel who wanted to follow in her vehicle. I called the Transportation Committee chair (we're all about different committees on this here WBLS staff) and asked him how many I was supposed to have. He said he didn't know, but heard that the Lt Col in charge of the ACSC staff (about five people) had defied direct orders from the WBLS Chair (the chair!) and taken a separate van. So we waited a few more minutes, picking up a straggler just as I was pulling out, and took the six of us (to include the new vice commandant, a Navy O-6) on our Big Bus to Hawthorne Hill.

Unfortunately, five minutes into our trip, heaven's plumbing sprung a leak, and I again was driving through a horrendous thunderstorm. At least it was only a twenty-minute drive this time. I let my charge off at the front door where the valets were waiting with multiple umbrellas forming a bridge, then parked down the street a few blocks at an elementary school (one of the valets gave me a lift back).

Sipping a Diet Sprite Zero at the bar on the outdoor covered patio, I waited for the rain to die down and the WBLS guests to arrive in their bus (driven by whom, I posed. "A contractor." "Hmph.") and took the time to walk around Orville and his sister Katherine's home (built after Wilbur died in 1912).

One by one the WBLS speakers walked in, though NASA flight director Gene Kranz more barreled in, a mitt of a hand extended to all of us, as he "Hi, Gene Kranz"-ed everyone he could see. Each speaker was assigned an escort, and I was really just the bus driver and tent putter upper and microphone guy, so I didn't feel the need to rub elbows too much. I did chat with some other students until the WBLS chair, circling her beverage glass in a small circle and repeated the motion with the other hand, said to me, "Mingle, mingle!" "I haven't seen Stuart in months!" I told her.
I did try to pick up Homer Hickam's wife's dirty napkin she'd dropped on the floor, but as I arrived, she picked it up herself. "Oh. I was going to do that," I said, but fortunately, after some small talk in a small group, she dropped it again. "I'll cherish this forever!" I said. "Throw that away." "Yes, ma'am."
I also joined in a conversation with Navy CAPT Bob Crippen, who flew on the very first space shuttle in 1981, and his wife Pandora. I also went on the tour of the upstairs and basement of the mansion, joining Hi Gene Kranz and our Commandant, Brig Gen Matthews.
Around nine, while explaining to a rather tipsy Brig Gen Olds that I would be miking him up tomorrow, someone told me I needed to go get the bus to act as Mega-Valet for all the WBLS staff members so they could make one trip down to the parking lot as opposed to many small ones. After a cluster of cars and vans and buses (and the Colonel who followed me backing her car through the lawn), I got everyone to their car, or back to the base, as necessary. Two trips, zero confirmed deaths. As many people put it that night, this would be the one practical skill I learned at AFIT.

Hey, have you seen Gene Kranz anywhere?

June 6th -- Like a Rock

Went in at 0900 to go over last-minute details for the Wright Brothers Lecture Series the end of the week -- a dress rehearsal, if you will. My audio-visual committee chair put me in charge of the speakers' lapel microphones, so I had to learn where they'd be, and where the guests of honor would be gathering when so I could find them and mike 'em up beforehand. Nothing like being able to say I stuck my hand down the waistband of a former Air Force Chief of Staff, no sir.

Back to the apartment, changed into dogworthy clothes for my final trip to the Humane Society. Very typical day -- a joy to be with the animules, a bear to deal with the conditions I find them living in. I wanted to talk to the director before I left to let him know HEY COULD A STAFF MEMBER CLEAN UP THE DOG SHIT IN THE CAGES SO THEY (the dogs) WILL GET ADOPTED but he was off on some TV shoot. So I played with Phoebe and Banjo, brought in together because their owner had died
(Banjo looked angry, but it's just a tremendous underbite; wagged her butt at me). Said good bye to Ben and Brenda and Bill Nye
and even took a small puppy (who didn't have a collar) out in the fenced in yard for a romp, who showed his appreciation by peeing up my thigh as I was hugging him.
Oh well.
I told the one staff lady that knew me that it was my last day. "Oh! Well! Thank you for volunteering! You were very reliable!"
As is your basic radial tire.

All caught up

This concludes our recap. You can start from the top again.

Tick-Talk

Good news and typical news at my penultimate trip to the Humane Society on Friday: King, Degu, Joey, and Cotton had all been adopted, and Fiffer was in a rent-to-own tryout (a foster family wanted to give him a shot) after four months or so in the fourth kennel on the right. But they had a more filling the holes left behind, unfortunately; "Teddy" said they got a new batch in from somewhere in Kentucky, to include a pair of malnourished mastiffs with wounded skin (but happy tails) and a bunch of puppy litters. Bill Nye, Roxy, and Max were new, Jumpin' Ben and sawft Brenda were holdovers from before.

CHEEEEESE!

But another new girl, Star, was a sad case. Never mind the two excre-mounds in her kennel (does ANYONE ever look back here?), she needed some personal attention. Most likely very recently pregnant, her teats looked like an inverted Denver International Airport. Lovely and energetic on her walk, we were stopped by the trees across the street enjoying a nice scritch when I noticed a lump by her collar. I checked and found a tick the size of a corn nut. Pulled that off, knowing there might be another, and found it. And another. And then two more. Decided to do a full search, and ended up yanking nine ticks off of her neck, head, chin, and chest. Walking back to the shelter, she stopped to scratch her head, and located a tenth one for us. Just unbelievable.
Rather than put her back in her cage, I took her to the back hallway to tell an employee about the condition she'd been left in. Found one in scrubs, carrying needles: "Are you the Humane Society vet?" I asked. She laughed. "No. I just work here."
Helpful.
Finally the Second of Command walked down the hall and asked how we were doing. I told her that I had pulled ten ticks off of her. "Yes, I know, we've sprayed them all, but they've come awful fast this year."
"..."
"Eventually they'll die."
And for a second, I thought she meant the dogs.

Snakes on a Plain

So a funny fauna thing happened in Ryan's room the other day.
Ainsley wanted to show me something in the light, so she guided me towards the window. On her finger was a little itty bitty deer tick she had found on her person; the type we should be looking for on the animals, she said. But as I was looking at her hand, I got a glimpse of a deflated bicycle tire in the back yard, which I thought was odd since a) my bike is in Dayton, b) I had just been in the back yard and didn't notice it there and c) it was moving.
So I was able to trump her little doodle bug with a full-blown carnivorous man-eating back-yard python.


Don't want none unless you got buns, hon.

Ever the animal lover, I tried to coax it out of the yard with a Ho-Ho and some moves I learned on "Stomp", but I got a pointed tongue and an epileptic tail thrown my way for my troubles. Eventually, what we're calling a "she" poured herself into a hole by a small wall divider to no doubt lay eggs and dig a tunnel into our dryer.
So if anyone's interested, we know of a nice house on Pocomoke that's for sale.

"Did I tell you he's skooching?"

I've been gone for years. Livingston was found in a shorter time period. The Cold War? A blink! Entire civilizations have come and gone since I'd seen my boy, it seems, as when I flew home for Memorial Day, gone was the wee blob of a one-tracked mind with a two-pronged diet (the left one or the right one). Thanks to United Airlines being unable to put a simple 500-mile flight together on time ever at all ever and thinking they can buy back my loyalty with a silly $100 gift certificate with tons of restrictions not that I'm bitter at all much at all, we pulled off the road to get out of rush hour and holiday weekend traffic, popping in at a seafood restaurant. (I ordered the "Bang Bang Shrimp" which has given us a new euphemism for a full diaper.) (And by "us" I mean "me".)
And lo and behelden, Ryan gets his own seat! In a high chair! And immediately, out comes the sippy cup! With water! And Ryan starts slurping away, holding the cup his little self!
And then eating little star bits of puffed sweet potato goodness!
By himself!
and then drinking from a regular big-people glass! with big-people help.
*sniff*
No teeth yet, not crawling yet, not committed to a college football program yet, but MAN am I missing everything.
And my wife is doing such a wonderful job. Expanding his horizons, teaching him new things, brushing his hair in sexy patterns.

My little "Gummy" Bear

We had our first outing alone on Memorial Day, when I took him to ManTown (Home Depot) and Panera Bread, and he did great with me -- Ainsley says it's obvious to her that it's obvious to him that I'm his daddy. I sure hope so. I hate being "that guy in the picture."
But after flying to Dayton, and calling home to report in and ask after Bailey's mood (she's usually down in the dumps after I leave), Ainsley instead told me the heartmelting news that Ryan, while nursing in the bedroom, kept twisting his head towards the bedroom door, as if expecting the Big Fella to come walking through any second...